The family of aromatic polycarbonamide fibers possessing extremely high strength, high modulus and low elongation are commercially available from the E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. under the trade name "Kevlar" and are generally referred to as aramid fibers. Such aramid polymers are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,652,510, 3,673,143 and 3,699,085.
There are many known methods of lubricating aramid fibers such as with various types of waxes and resins for the purpose of improving fatigue life, reducing yarn contact stresses and inhibiting fretting. However, it has been found that prior art lubricated aramid fiber yarns have not always performed satisfactorily, especially in standard wire rope constructions.
Presently known methods for stranding and closing an aramid fiber rope of wire rope type construction produced a rather unstable rope, in that the aramid fiber strands do not retain a "memory" of the preforming step. That is, the strands do not conform to the helix or lay direction of the rope and, therefore, have a tendency to unlay into a stable parallel lay condition. Often this imbalance tends to develop "bird-caging" of the outer strands, especially in multi-strand ropes.